5 Tips to Stop Overtreating Low Blood Sugar

Sensitive Topic Warning: For some people, eating a lot of food all at once when their blood sugar is low can be a sign of other eating issues. This can include vomiting food, eating very little or not using insulin properly. If you’re having a tough time with how you feel about food, remember that you are not alone. Help is available.

Here are a few resources to help you better identify and find support for disordered eating as a person with diabetes:

• Eating disorders & diabetes

• Treatment for eating disorders & diabetes
• Diabulimia recovery: 3 patients share their story
• WeAreDiabetes.org

Low blood sugars can be scary. They can also leave you feeling physically miserable long after you’ve treated a mild-to-moderate low (70 mg/dL [3.9 mmol/L] to 55 mg/dL [3.1 mmol/L]) with 15 grams of carbs. 

One of the most annoying parts of an intense low blood sugar? The desperate cravings for food.

Low blood sugar levels can trick your brain into binge-eating

The Cleveland Clinic explains that low blood sugar makes you feel hungry because your brain thinks your body doesn’t have enough energy. This triggers a survival response, releasing a hormone called ghrelin that makes you want to eat to restore your energy.

When you find yourself in this mode, it’s like a nagging, desperate voice coming from your cells throughout your brain, screaming at you to “eat more, eat more, eat more!”

But binge-eating during and after low blood sugar can affect your day in a variety of ways. More importantly, it’s not the answer. It might make you feel better in the moment, but it will almost inevitably make you feel worse later.

Overtreating low blood sugars usually results in a rebound high—aka a high blood sugar spike that happens as a result of eating too much to treat your low.

Overtreating lows usually comes with other issues

If you frequently overtreat your low blood sugars, you might also struggle with:

• Feeling guilty and ashamed about food
• Taking a huge dose of insulin to correct the high blood sugar that happens as a result of overtreating
• Getting stuck on a blood sugar roller coaster for hours, with your blood sugar going high and low, with no signs of settling down
• Emotional and physical exhaustion
• Extreme diabetes frustration
• Using low blood sugars to binge on foods you’ve deemed “bad” foods
• Weight gain or difficulty losing weight
• Feeling out of control and anxious
• Other disordered eating behaviors: purging, calorie restriction, insulin omission, etc.

Although your brain really wants you to keep eating when your blood sugar is low, there are steps you can take to prevent overeating, which we cover below. In this guide, we share tips to help people with diabetes (PWD) stop overtreating low blood sugar.

Don’t use foods you really enjoy to treat lows

If you’re reaching for yummy foods like sugary cereals or ice cream when you’re low, you could be setting yourself up for trouble. Once you start eating foods you enjoy, like ice cream, to treat lows, it can be hard to stop. Who can really stop at four spoonfuls?

It’s also hard to actually enjoy the ice cream when you’re low, and that just feels like a wasted opportunity. Instead of reaching for delicious treats that you know you won’t be able to stop eating while you’re low, reach for fast-acting carbohydrates that you’re not a huge fan of. Skittles, gummy bears or fruit snacks are also common examples of low blood sugar treatments that people with diabetes have on hand to help. Buying them in pouch form can help you avoid overdoing it.

Glucose tablets, gels, powders and even gummies might feel too medicinal; that’s also the point. Low blood sugar treatment should feel like medicine and can help you break the cycle of overtreating and regain management of your blood sugar levels. 

Setting that mental boundary is important.

Establish a personal rule for yourself: “This is what I will use to treat low blood sugars unless they are truly unavailable.”

Write it down, stick it on your pantry or refrigerator and say it out loud—whatever helps it sink in.  Not only will you be able to successfully treat a low, but you’ll also save your delicious ice cream for later, when you can actually enjoy it. Win-win.

Distract your brain with a harmless item to chew or drink

There are a few ways you can distract yourself from the cravings that come with low blood sugar.

Here are a few strategies we recommend trying:

• Drink a tall glass of ice water: Drinking cold water can feel very refreshing for your brain. A study showed that it can lower your heart rate, which might help reduce anxiety during lows because anxiety often makes your heart beat faster. Drinking cold water can be calming. Drinking room-temperature or cold water while recovering can also help keep your appetite in check. These small tricks really work!
• Chew gum: Sometimes, simply chewing something can distract your brain from yelling at you to eat more. Get those jaw muscles working! Five sticks of gum are better than five bowls of cereal any day. 
• Chew carrots: Chewing carrots can also help calm the urge to binge-eat. It’s also usually pretty hard to overeat carrots.

Sure, nothing will feel as good to your brain as a huge bowl of Frosted Flakes, but these ideas can help you get past the strongest urges to eat more when you’re dealing with a nasty low. Try one of them. If it doesn’t work, move on to the next.

Diabetes management is all about trial and error.

Get out of the kitchen—and sit on your hands.

Don’t stay in the kitchen when you’re feeling low. Sit on the couch or at your desk—anywhere except the kitchen. Get what you need and then leave. Keep a small amount of food nearby, just enough to take care of it. It can also be helpful to keep fast-acting carbs next to your bed so you never have to get out of bed to treat a midnight low. 

Treat the low with your chosen fast-acting carbs, then lie down or sit on your hands until the symptoms ease. Turn on the lights if it’s a late-night low or set an alarm to check your blood sugar again in 15 minutes so you don’t sleep through a worsening low. 

Stay up until your blood sugar reaches 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) or higher. Repeat the cycle until your blood sugar levels have settled. Remember the 15-15 rule—treat your low with 15g of carb every 15 minutes until your levels stabilize.

Remind yourself that you are in control of how much food you eat during a low

Your brain believes what you tell it. Start telling it this instead: I am in control.

Overeating during lows has become a habit. You might have conditioned your brain to react this way out of fear, anxiety or a lack of patience. These are all valid reasons, but it doesn’t have to be your forever norm.

Remember: You do have control over how much food you eat when your blood sugar is low. 

Yes, your brain is begging for food, but your brain is also still capable of thinking through what you know to be true about low blood sugars. 

Here are some other things to remember when you’re dealing with low blood sugar paranoia:

• It takes at least 15 minutes after eating to start feeling better
• High-fat foods will digest more slowly than fast-acting carbs
• Your body probably doesn’t need 100 grams of carbs for most lows
• You’re gonna feel lousy for the rest of the day if you binge during this low
• Yes, your brain is asking you to overeat, but you can say no 
• You are in charge of how much food you eat during this low

You are more powerful than your lows—never forget that.

Remind yourself of the many ways overtreating lows negatively impacts you

Have you ever sat down (when your blood sugar is stable) and really thought about the many ways that the habit of overeating during lows is affecting your life? Make a list. 

Ask yourself these important questions about your habit of overtreating lows:

• How is it impacting your diabetes?
• Your energy?
• Your weight?
• Your self-esteem?
• Your level of anxiety versus calm?
• Your relationship with food?
• Your relationships with other people?

The more you can dig deep into the consequences of overtreating lows, the more you can remind yourself why it’s just not worth it during your next one. If you’re struggling to figure out the answers yourself, that’s okay. Consider working with a health coach or mental health provider specializing in diabetes to help you understand why this happens and how to change your path.

Challenge yourself to form a new habit with your lows

Just like building any new habit, you need to choose to try something different, resist the urge to eat the entire box of cereal and push yourself to try a new approach. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it in the long run.

Low blood sugars are one of the toughest parts of living with diabetes. They can be scary, dangerous, exhausting, stressful and frustrating. The more we learn to handle our lows carefully and safely, the more we show diabetes who’s in charge.

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